Tag: Iowa State Education Association

These Labor Center public hearings are an example of what the University of Iowa should have done, on its own — before the decisions were made.

One of the most unsavory parts of the threats to the University of Iowa Labor Center — though not the only one — was the lack of public input into the decision by university officials.

The decision was “announced” under the public radar. Only after the word started spreading about the decision already made, the university decided to go public.

Increasingly, this is how decisions are being made in Iowa by government institutions — the Legislature has been a great example of it in the last two years with attacks on protections for working families and on equity in the tax code. The UI handling of the Labor Center decision is right in line.

These approaches defy Iowa values of transparency and public spirit once treasured in a state once proud of its openness. As we shall see in the coming days, there is an alternative: A reintroduction to the concept of a public hearing.

The “Save Our Labor Center” coalition will hold four such hearings in the coming days in various locations around the state. Each is an hourlong event starting at 6 p.m.Here are the dates and locations:

“University leaders took NO INPUT from any of the workers, students, faculty, or community members who rely on the Labor Center’s education and research prior to announcing their decision. Iowa’s public universities must hear from the public before making major decisions with significant, permanent impact on students, working Iowans, and communities across the state.”

For more information, you can contact saveourlaborcenter@gmail.com.

The Iowa Policy Project works with the University of Iowa Labor Center at times to enhance an understanding of public policy issues, and our staff has found the center to be a tremendous resource for Iowans.

A public university has a fundamental responsibility to the public and to public decision making that is being lost. These hearings are an example of what the University of Iowa should have done, on its own, well in advance of a backroom decision being dumped in the laps of Labor Center staff and the many Iowans who benefit from its work.

It might be interesting to see if anyone from the University of Iowa administration or the Board of Regents shows up at any of these hearings. It would be to their credit to do so, and to listen.

ALEC-friendly lawmakers, eager to crush public-sector unions, may have instead given them new organizational life.

If Iowa lawmakers thought that their Draconian revisions to Chapter 20 could break the back of public-sector unionism, the last two months have proven them spectacularly wrong. Since early September, almost 500 of Iowa’s public-sector bargaining units have been forced into recertification elections.

Under the new rules, locals had to pay for the election themselves — and then win a majority of the entire bargaining unit (not just the votes cast). AFSCME’s Danny Homan remarked that of those pushing the new restrictions, “not one … could win an election under the rules they gave us.”

As is evident in the returns, public-sector workers have not only dug in their heels against the attack on their rights to bargain, but have begun to push back. ALEC-friendly legislative leaders, so eager to crush public-sector unions and silence their political voice, may have instead given them new organizational life.

Consider some of the numbers from the September and October elections (summarized in the graphic above). Of those voting, almost 98 percent voted to keep the union. In 229 elections, all the votes cast were “yes” votes.

Of the 32 bargaining units (accounting for about 1,000 workers) decertified, only five lost the majority of votes cast; in 21 units, nonvoters — counted as “no” under the new rules — tipped the balance. In six other units, no one voted.

A look at the 32 decertification returns suggests results that are starkly undemocratic: At Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, for example, nurses voted 74-27 to stick with SEIU 199. But, because they needed 99 votes to capture half of the bargaining unit, they lost. In the Iowa Falls Community School District, a Teamsters 238 local voted 27-0 to certify. But because they needed 33 votes to capture half of the bargaining unit, they lost.

As an example of the success of strong organizing in the face of the rules imposed upon workers, Iowa State Education Association locals in 233 locations mobilized for recertification votes — winning 229 of those and losing only four by a total of 15 votes. Even in those four isolated cases, ISEA was favored by a majority of those actually voting — just not enough to satisfy the special restrictions placed on them by lawmakers.